


in the hands of the schoolmaster

by smithens



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Epistolary, Gen, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:36:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2611973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the summer of 1831, Combeferre returns to his boyhood home to take on the duties of schoolmaster. Meanwhile, Enjolras remains in Paris. They correspond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pelides](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelides/gifts).



> Thank you to Kristen for some editing work on the first chapter, thanks as well to my other preliminary readers - you know who you are.
> 
> For Tama, as a birthday gift.

_1 June, 1831_

 Enjolras—

 As of yesterday afternoon I am in Mougins. 

 The journey by diligence was safe and primarily uneventful, if very long. I am glad to be here; most everything is as I remember it. 

Living in the house that I was raised in after so much time away is very queer. I had feared during my journey that I should not recall my life in my hometown, that my old acquaintances and relatives might have changed and that I should hardly know them, but I see now that those fears were unfounded. Indeed, the only significant changes I can discern lie in the heights of my younger sisters. Sylvie and Celestine have recently turned eighteen years of age, yet when I last saw them they were fourteen. How? I have been away for too long, I think. It is a marvel what four years might do in one's personal progress. When I last saw them they were girls, now they are women. And Mathilde, the eldest of all of us—you met her husband when the two of them spent a holiday in Paris—is with child again. It astounds me how much I have missed. You are the only child in your family, are you not? Someday I should like you to meet all of my sisters. The three of them are delicate and modest creatures, and I trust that given time you would charm them as you have charmed me—yes, even you with your aberrant manner in regards to the fair sex. Perhaps next year, if you wish to and are otherwise unoccupied, we could journey south together for a summer visit. The lavender is in bloom throughout the season, and even if one does not see purpose or beauty in flora, the aroma is something to behold.  Besides, my mother already endeavors to keep me south longer than I have planned—I do not imagine she would begrudge it were I to return next year for a brief excursion, nor if I were to bring a dear friend along.

Of course, whether or not I come back next year is dependent on how the consequent months from now transpire.  I have not yet been introduced to the schoolmaster whom I am to replace in days' time, though I have heard tell of his temperament. However, I write to you in the morning, and Mathilde's husband had planned to introduce us out of the schoolhouse to-day or to-morrow. No matter when, I hope it will be soon, as this inquietude I feel over meeting the man's expectations is no comforting companion. 

Insofar as the details of the position go: there are fourteen children who attend the school regularly, I am told, aged five to thirteen, in a schoolhouse of one room. They attend thrice a week to study rhetoric, history, mathematics, and science.

Other than that, I am at a loss for what to expect and fear that I am not qualified. 

Enjolras, I cannot recall the last time I have been this anxious. I feel unlike myself. In the past months, I was keen to begin as a teacher, yet now, as I begin to embark on such an engagement, I am questioning whether I made the correct choice in accepting the offered position. Certainly it is a great honor to be chosen! But you already know my beliefs on educational matters, do you not? These questions that I ask myself now are no different than those questions that I have posed to others; indeed, they are my typical questions of education. I now comprehend that receiving such inquiries is very much unlike posing them—even when I myself am the enquirer! Progress lies in the hands of the schoolmaster; that is the truth. It is not the truth I am afraid of; it is accepting my role in that truth... as of now, I can only hope that I shall exceed my own expectations, as well as those of the children, while I discover the differences between medicine and instruction.

Forgive me for my worry. I remember now that I had intended to pen you a letter of positivity, detailing my homecoming and the new prospects of this position. I suppose that I failed in the latter and succeeded in the former. 

Nonetheless, I trust that you and the society are well. If you would, send Courfeyrac and Feuilly my greetings—and Jean Prouvaire as well if he has returned from Italy upon your receipt of this letter. 

Know that I missed your presence the moment I left Paris; I miss it ardently still. Please, keep in touch, as summer in Paris may not be so calm as winter. Consider the recent months and recall thus: the light of daybreak illuminates far better than any inferno.

Intimately yours,

Benjamin Combeferre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. A diligence was a type of coach used in France for long distance travel throughout the 19th century, particularly prior to the advent of railroads. Mougins is between Grasse and Cannes in the south of France. My sources were inconclusive as to just how long a journey by diligence would take from Paris to that far south, but I do know that it would take a long time and be rather uncomfortable. Mail supposedly went marginally more quickly, but sources on that were also difficult to find, so subsequent letter dates might be historically unrealistic.
> 
> 2\. Combeferre's schoolhouse is based primarily on American schoolhouses due to lack of free and available sources on primary schooling in France at the early-mid 19th century. More on that in two chapters.
> 
> 3\. The way I imagine this, Combeferre does not use crosslettering, but his handwriting is tiny, takes up all of his parchment paper, and is nearly impossible to read for the untrained eye. His signature, however, is pristine. (First name used because it was custom to use full names in letter signage, even if one only used a given or surname in speech.)
> 
> 4\. Yes, I am aware what year comes after 1831.


	2. Chapter 2

_June the 18th, 1831_

Combeferre, 

I received your letter of June the 1st, and I take up my pen now to reply, with the knowledge that whatever I compose will not reach you for several weeks and the hope that heretofore you have overcome your apprehensions regarding your position. You needn't feel unqualified, and regardless of, as you said, "the differences between medicine and instruction," I am assured that you will concern yourself with giving full measure to discerning them, and apply yourself wholly to the engagement, or rather, that you are doing so currently. (I presume that you have already begun your position at the time of my writing this, indeed, that you have been active in it for over a fortnight.) I know you, I know that you are far more capable a man than what you may esteem yourself as, that you will determinedly see yourself through a task no matter its characteristics. You are a good and upright man, Combeferre, and I should say that just as I am fortunate to have you as a friend and brother, your newfound pupils are fortunate to have you as their master. The cultivation of young minds is no small feat, yet there is no doubt in my mind that you are suited to the endeavor. (Though selfishly one might hope that it does not suit you so well as to require you for longer than the summer.)

As for your family, I should be pleased to accompany you on a visit when the time is right, perhaps, as you stated, next summer, assuming we have no other obligations. You speak of them so highly that I find myself intrigued; as you know, I was raised by my widower father, and he did not remarry until I was nearing adulthood. In fact, you recalled correctly that I am an only son. I urge you not to misunderstand my upbringing, however, because although it is true that I have no brothers or sisters by blood, I feel no loss or loneliness for the fact. Why? It is because I take for my brothers my friends, a family of companionship and of ambition. What of our father? I pronounce, the homeland, that is, Patria. What of our mother? We each share one mother by ideal, that mother is the Republic. To be allied by dreams is far greater than to be allied by blood. 

But we have discussed this affair to great length, have we not?

Anyhow, you requested that I pass along your greetings, this I have done. Courfeyrac sends his regards, and has asked me to inform you that, and here I quote to you his words, his most recent mistress "has forsaken him for an Englishman".  In confidence I tell you that he does not seem much the worse for it. Regarding the others, Feuilly is well. Our friends Joly and L'Aigle departed for Meaux as planned shortly after you departed for Mougins, and neither have sent word since.  Bahorel, too, has not sent word from his hometown. Should any sort of news arrive, I shall be sure to inform you of it. As for Jean Prouvaire, he is returned. It seems his tour of Italy left him remarkably melancholy: He arrived in Paris not two days ago eager to make known the details of his travels, yet as of now, we find him withdrawn and somber. One must wonder if this may be attributed in part to your absence, as well, given your joint intimacy. 

If the latter is the case, well, I cannot begrudge him for it: I, too, yearn for your propinquity.  

Not a week ago I found myself, for what must have been the fourth time, walking in the direction of your lodgings after an informal meeting of the society, only to remember as I neared your building that you are not in the city.  It seems that our long nights together have instilled in me this habit, and though it may be peculiar, it is not a habit I wish to break.Yet life in Paris goes on without you here to experience it, no matter how much we may desire your presence.  The news is thus: Riots occurred in the Rue de Faubourg-Saint-Denis mere days ago; they went on for several days,  in the end, of course, the National Guard suppressed the people once more. While neither I nor any of our close companions were involved in the disorder and thus I cannot speak well as to their nature, the events have shaken our faction all the same.  

It is due in part to this trampled émeute that, since receiving your letter yesterday, your usual notions on the subject of illumination have given me repose. Even from a distance as great as the one between us now, you manage to quell my surging thoughts, I have but to think of you, of your philosophies, of your polytechnical manner, and I then find that I am at ease once more. These are small comforts, certainly, but they are comforts all the same, and they will suffice as I await your return. 

I bid you well, and I am anxious to read the particulars of your position in your reply.

Your Friend and Brother, 

Jean-Nicolas Enjolras

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I heavily considered the possibility of Enjolras marking the date using both the Gregorian and Jacobin calendars, but ultimately decided against it.
> 
> 2\. As one might be able to tell, I'm a believer that by this point, Enjolras has already moderated his views somewhat due to Combeferre's influence. (I think that Combeferre's views, likewise, would have become a bit more radical by this point than they were in 1827.)
> 
> 3\. Jean Prouvaire embarked on a Italian 'Grand Tour', which was actually an English custom in the 17th/18th/19th centuries for wealthy young men to explore Europe. Of course, Jean Prouvaire didn't quite care about English customs, and instead he followed the purely Italian itinerary for several months in the spring.
> 
> 4\. According to French Wikipedia, there was, in fact, violent rioting in the Faubourg Saint-Denis and the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle in June 1831, from the 14th to the 16th. Another source informed me that those riots were related to the July Monarchy. I didn't find much more on them, because most search engines and databases I used assumed I meant the June Rebellion of 1832, rather than rioting that occurred in June 1831.
> 
> 5\. Enjolras, unlike Combeferre, utilizes crosslettering - the act of writing perpendicularly across what one has already written to save space. This was a common practice before the advent of prepaid mail, when the charge was paid for by the recipient and based on amount of sheets over weight.
> 
> 6\. Jean and Nicolas are possibly two of the worst given names Enjolras could have, based on the phonetics of his surname, so, naturally, I used them both.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one year and seven days later...

_11 July, 1831_

Dear Enjolras--

Everyday life here has been most hectic as of late, and as such I ask that you pardon my delay in writing a reply to your letter. Do forgive me my activity - I know that you would not begrudge me for it, but I feel that I must apologise all the same.

My time in Mougins so far has shown to me new horizons, and, one might hope, I have shown to my corner of  Mougins the same. The schoolchildren take up most of my time; though I only see them three days of the week, it seems the involvement my position requires is more of a commitment than I had anticipated. There is curricula to consider, you see, and much of my time is spent not with family but on my lonesome at my writing desk. Now, you asked for details, I am wont to oblige you.

As I believe I wrote to you in my first letter - there are fourteen children. The youngest, Élisabeth, is five, and she was well in progress with learning her alphabet and numbers up to twenty when I met her on the first day of my position. The eldest, Françoise, is thirteen; it appears to me that she will cease her attendance in the coming weeks in order to tend to the home. Though, she takes to her studies wholeheartedly. The children in between are similarly in progress, and it is difficult not to form attachment. Indeed, I believe I have thus far: There is a boy of ten called Jean-Pierre who wishes for me to teach him Latin. His elder brother, he told me, was sent to boarding school the previous year - the same that I attended, in fact. It is clear that the boy is most anxious to begin himself; as it seems he is far advanced in the study of French for his age, I will oblige him his wish. Of the rest of the children, I was initially surprised that they were as well behaved and eager to learn as they are - I do not recall similar enthusiasm from my fellows during my initial schooling as a young boy. Whether this is result of their own individual motivations or the methods of their previous teacher, I cannot say, only that I shall sorely miss them: the knowledge that I shall be leaving my hometown once again in under two months' time is above all bittersweet. 

Life outside of the school is similarly engaging, though I admittedly have not set aside much time for matters unrelated to the children.

The constant prattle and joyousness of the two young ladies in the house is a dramatic difference from what I have come to know from living on my lonesome in Paris, where the only fair presence is that of the landlord's wife. I had missed my sisters tremendously in Paris; it gives me such great joy to be near them. Even Mathilde, though she lives in the same house as the rest of us no longer, calls upon us with her husband and child frequently - when I spoke to my father and mother about her visits,  they informed me that this was indeed out of the ordinary and that they likely are only so frequent due to my presence. This is of no consequence, as I truly enjoy her presence. We are not so close as we were ten years ago, that is true, but it is a delight all the same. 

It pleases me greatly, Enjolras, to know that though I am far from you, I may give you comfort still. Indeed, it is only fair, you have provided me with the same in your letter! I think of you often. By the time of my return to Paris, I daresay that I will have produced a compendium of notes here documenting my reflections. It is perhaps abashing for me to pen so - but as often as I think of you, I have reflected thoroughly on your ideals in my writing. I hope to share these papers with you in the future.

I would ask of you to send to Courfeyrac my condolences for his loss of mistress; however I know better than to do so, he surely has taken another in the time since. Alas for him nonetheless! Now, regarding Jean Prouvaire, I will enclose a slip of paper in the fold of this letter - it is his to read. It saddens me to know he has experienced such melancholy. But it is in his nature, is it not? Nonetheless I do hope he is able to recover from such temperament in sooner time if he has not by the time this reaches you. 

It appears now that I am about to exhaust the remainder of my writing space. I shall end here for brevity's sake.

Your Intimate Friend,

Benjamin Combeferre

 


End file.
